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A very dear aunt passed away this summer, and her daughters have asked me to try and retrieve her photos and other documents from her PC. The problem is, I've turned it on, but it is stuck in an endless reboot cycle. I see the Windows 2000 Pro NT start up screen, but before the "starting up" status bar makes it all the way to complete, the PC automatically reboots! It never makes it past the Windows screen. I've tried starting in Safe Mode, but no luck.

It's a Compaq Deskpro EN running Windows 2000 professional, according to the service tag and startup screen.

Any advice/insight would be very greatly appreciated! We really want to get her personal info off this PC--there are tons of pictures of grandchildren and other family on there that we really don't want to lose.

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It looks like the hard drive is operational at least, it's trying to boot. My suggestion would be to remove the drive from the Compaq and connect it to another computer. The easiest way to do this is to invest in a USB external hard drive enclosure. You do not want a external hard drive, you want a empty enclosure. These can be purchased from computer/electronics retailers. Due to the age of the PC you will most likely have a hard drive with a IDE interface. It is important the enclosure you purchase will interface with the hard drive.

The USB enclosure will allow you to connect the drive to a working PC and browse the drive for the files and save them to something like a CD or DVD to pass along.

Firefoxthebomb, I think that adapter is exactly what I need. Simple, affordable and I don't have to worry about making sure I get the right size for the drive. That was part of my concern is I don't know if it's a 2.5" or 3.5" drive....Either way, both of these suggestions are much better than the $60 item the guy at Best Buy told me I needed. Or, I could spring for $80 to have the Geek Squad get the pics off for me. I'm going to order the adapter from Walmart and give that a shot! Thank you both for your suggestions! I'll let you know how it goes!

When using the interface firefoxthebomb reccomended be careful what you set the hard drive on. Be sure it is not metal or conductive because the drive circuit board will be exposed. I have personally ruined a drive by letting the bottom circuit board touch the case by accident. Once the board is fried it is a costly trip to the data recovery pro.